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While you're not speaking, re-read the article or summary. They compare the sentence someone involved actually received to the maximum possible sentence any hacker could theoretically get. Most commonly, a first time offender "facing ten years" will end up with probation. At this point, we have no idea what punishment the hacker will get, if any at all.

It's ingenious satire for the thought process which most Americans share. Remember the journalists' coverage of the event? They didn't give a shit about the rape victim, they just whined about how these vile rapists' careers were destroyed. Worse yet, the journalists who said this were women themselves.

Never in my life I could imaging the government in the United States could be so fucked up !

Not only they broke the CONSTITUTION with their phone tapping and their PRISM, now they are doing that to the people who volunteered their skill to preserve what needed to preserve - THE EVIDENCES which had helped the prosecutors in that rape case !!

FUCK MAN !!!

United States is NO LONGER the land of the free, and those who live in it are no longer the braves, either !!!

You're not going to do anything about it though cowboy, are you? Sorry to Godwin, but the Jews that fared best in WWII were the ones that saw the writing on the wall and GTFO before SHTF. Good luck to ya though.

I've long held that Canada is, at best, about 5 to 10 years lag behind the States in terms of these things. People started doubting my claims when the recent Bush Administration was elected. They ceased doubting me once the Harper Administration came into power.

Back in the pre WW II days, those Jews who decided to stay behind (even if they could afford to move away), sure didn't commit any sin of cop out --- OTOH, those who did cop-out, didn't end up in the oven, tho

In fact, some of those ended up in places where they could do something about it; places like Oak Ridge, TN and Los Alamos, NM. The Jews (among others) paid an horrific price to re-learn something they should never have forgotten. You don't submit weakly to tyrrany. You don't just move a little bit down the road when a pogrom razes your town. Despite their many faults, at least the Israelis got that.

In fact, some of those ended up in places where they could do something about it; places like Oak Ridge, TN and Los Alamos, NM. The Jews (among others) paid an horrific price to re-learn something they should never have forgotten. You don't submit weakly to tyrrany. You don't just move a little bit down the road when a pogrom razes your town. Despite their many faults, at least the Israelis got that.

Now, if only the USA can re-learn what folly was Nazi Germany...

The jews never submitted weakly to tyrany. Like the communists, roma, homosexuals and others they took arms up, and rioted and turned the ghettos up side down at war with the nazi oppressor.

And they all got killed, because good intentions dont mean shit when your outnumbered by a well funded military killing machine.

Stop pushing this idea that the jews just weakly went to the chambers. its bad history and its blatantly untrue.

It wasn't folly at all. The Germans nearly won. Their problem was that Hitler was a terrible military strategist, and they also bit off more than they could chew, trying to take over all of Europe and worst of all, Russia (which was their real undoing). The USA doesn't have these problems: it already controls tons of land (e.g., the entire US itself; it has far more land area than Germany ever had), and these days controlling land directly

Of course it was! Attempting to take over two continents and umpteen countries, decimating their existing populations because they're inferior races, and expecting to get away with it? That's the definition of megalomaniacal.

The Nazis failed because the Russian winter showed up when they weren't equipped for it, because Hitler decided to take the Balkans first.

As long as they don't create death camps (which they won't, because they don't have any irrational hatred of specific ethnic groups like Hitler and his henchmen did)...

Checked the size of your prison population lately?

... and don't try to start a giant war with the rest of the developed world...

Of course it was! Attempting to take over two continents and umpteen countries,

No, it wasn't. As I said before, they bit off more than they could chew, and made some serious military blunders, but they did come pretty close to succeeding. If they had left Russia alone, they might have succeeded. Yes, it was megalomaniacal, but every country that engages in wars of conquest meets this definition to some degree. Only a couple decades before this, most of the European countries did the exact same thing: th

Hitler was quite good at military strategy for a head of state (certainly ahead of Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Mussolini). His reputation for messing things up comes largely from the German generals, who were used to extreme levels of independence in operational command (including shaping diplomacy for military purposes), and who after the war wrote their memoirs to show that they would have won if it hadn't been for Hitler. After mid-war, Hitler was increasingly at odds with the military, since th

The USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Individuals who believe in civil rights have often been targeted by the government and imprisoned by the government (see: citizens of Japanese-decent during WW2, the labor movement during the 1930s, the many various human rights movements, the Black Panthers, Nixon's spying on the Democratic Party Headquarters, etc etc etc). The glaringly racist drug policies (see: powdered cocaine vs crack sentencing) and systemic poverty have combined to create a wonderful system of ethnic cleansing for Young Black Males, no barbwire required.

So you are saying that the US is running concentration camps for people who believe in strong civil rights?

Not yet, but Obama has shown over and over that he hates whistleblowers and leakers, and anyone who protests against him. It's not going to be any better after Obama's term is over, because he's nothing more than a puppet for the powers-that-be who selected him and control him, so the next guy is going to be more of the same, and probably worse, as they're going to keep tightening the screws.

So what you're saying is that people should feel an obligation to forever remain in the place they happened to be born in, and deciding to move somewhere populated by more like minded people and governments is a bad thing?

That's exactly what you do. Vote with your feet. Leaving a place is the best way to show them they have a problem. They'll either realize everyone's leaving and fix it or go out of business. There are other places out there that would be happy to have productive members of society.

Well, when the fascists come it looks like a good idea. Until, that is, the authorities are politicised, injustice is rampant, corruption is rife, financial systems fail and the government doesn't explain itself.

According to my primary school history text books, the government is us

However, I have grown up, and the reality has changed as well

The US government is no longer "us"

No more

During the Watergate era, I was very proud to be an American --- because, at that time, America is the only country in the world where the CONSTITUTION took precedence, so much so that a president could lose his job for doing a wrong thing

Now ?

If you still think that the same thing can happen to Obama, I have a beautiful bridge in Brooklyn to sell you

At least some of the "crimes" are faked. That Apache video, for instance. It was edited and narrated by people who are clueless. The Reuters reporter was EMBEDDED in an insurgent unit which had fired on American troops on the ground. That insurgent unit was reported to higher command by the troops on the ground, and the Apache was dispatched to the area to FIND that insurgent unit. Most of the individuals killed in the initial encounter were armed, because they were soldiers in Badr's army. They were

Manning upheld his oath to support the Constitution in maybe 0.01% of the files he released. He violated that oath on the other 99.99%. When you whistleblow, you release evidence/data of crimes being committed in secret. You do not do a data dump of everything being done in secret, much of which is legitimately being kept secret. Satisfaction of your curiosity is not a sufficient standard for categorizing something as whistleblowing.

"It's not too late to reward politicians who will back sane and reasonable sentences."

Yes, it is. Realistically you have three options: Vote republican, vote democrat, or throw away your vote. The parties have set things up between them to effectively exclude any independent or third-party participation. You see a handful at the state level, and once in a blue moon one even makes it to congress, but that's all.

The point where you go wrong is in assuming that all democrats / republicans are built equal. They're not. Some of them *will* back a policy that you think is important. You actually need to be a couch potato who knows a bit about the candidates and what they stand for.

I'll admit this though: you need to make politicians and other voters aware that you care about

why does shit like this get marked insightful when the comments here that point out the obvious fact that this alarmist idiot article is comparing actual to potential sentences, two totally different things get barely a mention?

1. "totally fucked up / never in my life could i imagine fucked up." good for you.2. "broke the constitution.." except that they didn't, as judged have ruled. so take your hollywood upstairs degree in constitutional law.3. "fuck man." brilliant.4. "no longer land of the free."

i mean, its right there in black and white in their internal documents. offensive hack capability violates international law and domestic lalw.

the fundamental problem is the idea that the government doesnt have to follow the same laws as the people. thats a problem and historically civilizations haved moved towards a system of legal equality for all, not a special eception for the already powerful

the fundamental problem is the idea that the government doesnt have to follow the same laws as the people. thats a problem and historically civilizations haved moved towards a system of legal equality for all...

Not that I'm advocating violence or anything (far from it), but I'd just like to say I think the Romans learned that lesson in the most constructive way [wikipedia.org]. You'd think today's politicians never studied history.

From the article it appears that he is being charged with hacking the school website in order to upload the video, not being charged for preserving the content for authorities.

That being said, I still think the relative sentences are really out of whack, and that rapists (even juveniles) should absolutely be more harshly punished than hackers who do not hack in a way that causes significant harm.

Keep in mind that "Significant harm" usually means the victim now has to spend lots of money upgrading the security that they never had in the first place. Because, after all, they would never had needed that if it wasn't for said hacker right?

... If you're a US prosecutor. Anyone with any common sense would be stretching it [unclear] Why would a teen want to send their SO porn?

Sorry... part of your comment was unclear when a loud "WHOOSH" went overhead.

Tangentially, teens would want to send their SO porn for the same reason an adult would: They're sexually mature enough to arouse their partner in the hope that such arousal would be returned. As I've said before, the notion of "18 years" being the magic moment of maturity is a relic from the Puritans' shunning of all things sexual. Really, the development of responsibility is a far more complex subject. Some people are responsibl

The age cutoff is arbitrary. But when we do not treat it as inviolate, then we do us all a disservice. In practical terms, minors have no rights, and thus should have less responsibility. That is, they should never be tried as an adult, under any circumstances. It is always their parents' responsibility if their upbringing comes out wrong.

Reading some of the responses to your post, I think people are missing your point. So. I am going to rephrase it so that they might understand.

The summary compares apples to oranges. It compares the sentence which the rapists actually received to the maximum sentence that the hacker MIGHT receive. The rapists MIGHT have received a much stiffer sentence than they did and it would be a travesty of justice if the hacker DID receive a sentence longer than that received by the rapists.

No, it's a travesty that something as minor, insignificant and non-violent as hacking the website of some hick-ass midwest high school can even carry a potential sentence (or that it can result in anything more than a reprimand, for that matter) which overlaps with that of something as despicable, repugnant and heinous as the gang-rape of a minor.

We have a long tradition of ignoring rules as it suits us. This began with Saul of Tarsus picking and choosing which bits of Jewish Legal Tradition would be followed by future Xians.

Someone in this very thread suggested that we should ignore such rules. Inevitably you will have a like mined person declare that the crime was so horrible that a child must be declared as an adult. Then the whole mob mentality will kick in. If the judge doesn't have enough of a backbone or a sufficient respect for the law, then

I've always supported the idea that Juveniles that commit very serious crimes like this who can not serve their sentences because of their age should pass on their remaining sentence to their guardians (parents).

I may need to write to one of my local reps, Zoe Lofgren [slashdot.org] who's working to change the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to make it "less vague" and have her add some other reforms.Sure, "hacking" for vigilantism is wrong and two wrongs don't make it right, but neither does three: throwing the book at Deric Lostutter.

heck, that guy in texas who killed that escort got less [mysanantonio.com]

I was about to write this. If we are comparing the sentences, the question is about which threat poses the greatest risk to society.
It is NOT about the actual damage done. As above, welcome to the new world.

It doesn't make sense to compare actual sentences (and in this case juvenile sentences!) with theoretical maximums for adult defendants. So, knock off the fabricated outrage and let's wait for the outcome of the case. You can still get outraged after the actual facts are in.

It doesn't make sense to compare actual sentences (and in this case juvenile sentences!) with theoretical maximums for adult defendants

What they did, the way they fingered that poor girl, took video of it, and then spread the vid to everybody they knew, -- if that happened to your daughter, would you still say that it's a "juvenile" case ?

It turns out that jurys have to decide based on evidence and according to the law, rather than just guessing what happened and then picking the outcome that they personally prefer.

It turns out that jury is one of those words where you drop the y and add ies when you want to make it plural. Also, we have not just a right but a responsibility to nullify juries when the very case is unjust.

At first, he thought the FBI agent at the door was with FedEx. "As I open the door to greet the driver, approximately 12 FBI SWAT team agents jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to 'Get the fuck down!' with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed directly at my head," Lostutter wrote today on his blog. "I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house."

That's either an intimidation tactic or the geniuses at the FBI have seen too many Rambo reruns. A 12 person SWAT team to serve a search warrant on one person who they have no reason to believe is violent? If it was proportional, they would have sent an armored division to arrest the rapists. Somehow I doubt they did.

In my sleepy little city in a rural corner of my State, our 8-member police department has 2 armored vehicles, 28 fully-automatic machine guns, 2 grenade launchers, and routinely engages in military-style exercises on weekends where they set up Soviet-style checkpoints and violate peoples' civil rights. People have been bringing this up at city council meetings only to be told by the council members that this type of activity is necessary to keep us safe - the typical GOP line.

Even my "Tea Party" congressman, who ran on the "Tea Party" platform, has been completely silent on the recent revelations about government spying on American Citizens, instead focusing his efforts on the GOP's scandal-du-jour, usually whatever bullet list of talking points Sean Hannity is vomiting on his radio show that day.

All of it is paid for by the Federal Government's various drug and terrorism interdiction programs - and we're not even in a border state, unless you count the Atlantic Ocean to be a high-drug-traffic border.

This is nothing new. We, as a society, recognized long ago that children do stupid shit and sometimes shouldn't receive the full punishment for their actions.

If the Steubenville rapists had been tried as adults (and I think they should have), they would have been facing up to 25 years in prison. Under certain circumstances, Ohio law allows for a sentence of life in prison for someone convicted of rape, too, but I don't think that applies to those two. As it is, they not only have their sentences, but they're going to be added to the sex offender list for anywhere from ten years to life. They're going to find it very difficult to find jobs and places to live while they're on that list.

There's nothing shockingly disproportionate about a maximum of 10 years for hacking vs a maximum of 25/life for rape. You might argue about the specific numbers, but I think everyone will agree that rape is the more serious crime and Ohio law allows for more serious consequences, just as it should.

The hacking also exposed the government of failing to enforce a crime.

Hacking crimes should be relative based upon scope. Steal $10 you a petty thief; steal $1,000,000 you are a felon. The only reason 10 years is on the there is because someone in the government got embarrassed not because of hacking as a crime.

10 years is a maximum, not a fixed sentence that all hackers get. The minimum is nothing. It's up to the judge to decide the actual sentence and, believe it or not, most judges understand that the scope of a crime should be taken into account when deciding the sentence given.

In other words, the legal system is set up the way you're saying it should be, but you don't realize it so you're arguing that it's wrong and should be set up the way it's already set up.

Just for thought, consider the case of Bernie Madoff.
He was a con man running a ponzi scheme. There were a lot of folks who had money to invest. These folks wanted to get a large return on their investment. These folks willingly gave this investment money to Madoff. Most of these people ended up losing their investment, because it was a ponzi scheme.
Madoff was arrested and has lost everything and is in jail for the rest of his life. People wanted Madoff to get the death penalty. Madoff did not rape anyone. Madoff did not commit a violent crime.
The hackers also committed a non violent crime. And will spend more time in jail than most rapists. It's just not right.

(My idea): If people could band together and agree to vote out theincumbent (senator, representative, president) whenever one of theseincidents crop up, there would be incentive for politicians to betterserve the people in order to continue in office. This would meangiving up party loyalty and the idea of "lessor of two evils", which alot of people won't do. Some congressional elections are quite close,so 2,000 or so petitioners might be enough to swing a future election.

Someone added: Vote them out AND remove their lifetime,taxpayer-funded, free health care. See how fast the health care systemgets fixed.

Someone added:You can start by letting your house and senate rep knowhow you feel about this issue / patriot act and encourage others youknow to do the same.

If enough people let their representivies know how they feel obviouslythose officials who want to be reelected will tend to take notice. We haveseen what happens when wikipedia and google go "dark", congressionalswitchboards melt and the 180's start to pile up.

I added: Fax is considered the best way to contact a congressperson,especially if it is on corporate letterhead.

Suggestion #2:

Tor, I2dP and the likes. Let's build a new common internet over theinternet. Full strong anonymity and integrity. Transform what aneavesdropper would see in a huge cypherpunk clusterfuck.

Taking back what's ours through technology and educated practices.

Let's go back to the 90' where the internet was a place forknowledgeable and cooperative people.

Someone Added: Let's go full scale by deploying small wireless routersacross the globe creating a real mesh network as internet was designedto be!

Suggestion #3:

A first step might be understanding the extent towards which thegovernment actually disagrees with the people. Are we talking about asituation where the government is enacting unpopular policies thatpeople oppose? Or are we talking about a situation where peoplesupport the policies? Because the solutions to those two situationsare very different.

In many cases involving "national security", I think the situation iscloser to the second one. "Tough on X" policies are quite popular, andpoliticians often pander to people by enacting them. The USA PatriotAct, for example, was hugely popular when it was passed. And ingeneral, politicians get voted out of office more often for being not"tough" on crime and terrorism and whatever else, than for being tooover-the-top in pursuing those policies.

Suggestion #4:

What I feel is needed is a true 3rd party, not 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6thparties, such as Green, Tea Party, Libertarian; we need an agreeablethird party that can compete against the two majors without a lot ofinterference from small parties. We need a consensus third party.

I think it's fairly obvious that the majority actively supports any and all invasions, rights infringements, and violations. They vote for politicians who campaign on it, they love watching TV shows that depict it (NCIS and 24, among others), and they adore listening to TV and radio shows that promote it. Slashdot has always been and always will be a tiny politically irrelevant minority. A minority that is to be ignored as much as possible, and persecuted with draconian measures as necessary to convince